Judith Jamison

“As a dancer, you really try to stay true to whatever the choreographer/artistic director is giving you. So, now the shoe is on the other foot and I have to trust everyone else - I have to trust the dancer. As I was trusted as a dancer, I trust my dancers.”

“Dancers use their bodies in extraordinary ways, so we are chronically pre-arthritic, because of how we use our muscles and our bones.”

“I've been in a competitive situation almost all my life. I've been having a competition with myself and trying to be the best I could be.”

“Since babyhood, I've always evolved from one thing to another. My mother gave me ballet lessons at 6 as part of her enthusiasm for the arts and for life. We went to museums, to the theater. While her own talent was untapped, she worked for church causes.”

“I've had a really charmed life, you know. Things always come to me - they just do.”

“Strive for perfection. Nobody's going to be perfect on this earth. But strive for perfection.”

“I'm very smart when it comes to choosing dancers and trying to show the world that there's a whole lot of dancing going on.”

“Dance is not endangered - it will always find a way to express itself.”

“I could say now at 66, yeah, I was a fabulous dancer. I was really terrific, you know. But I was always present. I was present. I was supposed to be where I was supposed to be at the time I was supposed to be.”

“I believe God has a path for me. He's always had a path for me, and I've always been in the right place at the right time - not because of my efforts, but because of my preparation and because of the guides that I have, the mentors that I have, the spiritual walkers that I've had all my life.”

“People don't remember me for how high my legs went, even though they went up very high, and how many pirouettes I did. They don't remember me for that. They remember me and any other dancer because something touched them inside. It's an indelible memory on the heart and in the mind.”

“Learn the craft of knowing how to open your heart and to turn on your creativity. There’s a light inside of you.”

“I tell young people that people aren't just going to flock to you as your mentors. You have to seek them out. It could be your next-door neighbor; it could be somebody upstairs from you, somebody down the block from you. An aunt or an uncle. Some relative. A parent.”

“We can go on talking about racism and who treated whom badly, but what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wallow in that or are you going to create your own agenda?”

“I went to an audition for a Harry Belafonte Roaring Twenties special for choreographer Donald McKayle, but I failed.”

“The world is full of ways for people to dance. Concert dance doesn't get its due.”

“You have to dance unencumbered. There's no other way to move. The idea of dance is freedom. It is not exclusiveness, it's inclusiveness.”